


After

by sgtfarron



Series: Nights [6]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, I don't think anyway, Introspection, Second Person, a bit of unreality?, angsty, but not too much so, i like that no one is dead in this collection, neurodivergent, talk of simulations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 07:18:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6972529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgtfarron/pseuds/sgtfarron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You never talk about it. (You don’t know why it was so much easier to voice your thoughts at times in all those simulations and you sometimes find yourself frustrated at your failing in the moments where you think you have something serious to say but can’t).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know just wanted to write something. Didn't know whether to add it to the "Nights" collection because the tone seems a bit different? And the timeline may see a bit foggy, but in MY head I can see how this fits (closer to the end of the war than the others).

You’ve never really mentioned the extent of what Samaritan put you through, never put voice to the silent thoughts that haunt the back of your mind from time to time; you’ve only ever spoke on it briefly with an off the cuff, flippant remark regarding the technological shit Samaritan had managed to create under all their noses (and only back when It was still a threat but it’s been a couple years since then).

Root has never asked though you know she has always wanted to know despite the comment you had thrown out there implying just that. You know she has an idea, could see it in the way she looked at you that day, but it’s not the same. (You never specifically told her you got her message when you were still captive, either. Not wanting to remember how close you were to ending it for real. Not wanting to let slip that she was mere moments away from being too late always aware how that would hit her even after all this time).

You’re aware she wants to know; you’ve just never been able to voice it and she has always respected that. Never pushed. She has just always… _been there_ when you needed her to be, silently or with a flirty comment to distract you, whichever you needed at the time. Somehow she just knows and you’ve almost given up trying to figure out how.

Nowadays you’re (mostly) fine. But at first? It was questionable.

When you first managed to get back to the team you were filled with a silent, simmering anger at Samaritan for what it put you through, for making you not be able to be sure the world was even real, and at yourself for failing to be able to sort it all out. You were constantly living with the weight of waiting for the other shoe to drop; even as things started to slot into place after you killed Greer and managed to burn his pet AI to the ground, you couldn’t shake it completely.

(Still can’t if you’re being completely honest with yourself).

It took a lot of time and a lot of time with Root for you to get as settled as you are.

You tell yourself that logic says that Samaritan never would have given you all this: A life after it failed, was destroyed, where your few precious people and yourself lived to see the other side of that war; especially for all the time that as lapsed. (If, in some absurd twisted, it _did_ wake you, you’d just end it and that would be the end of you as a guinea pig because forget trying to come back from _that_ level of mind fuckery).

But time is key. The more that passes the less and less likely that absurdity even seems possible. Most people fret at signs of growing older, but you've come to revel in it, taking each small change as a sign that you are really aging, that real time is passing.

Time, and specifically time spent with Root (on missions and time spent in quiet) alone is what at the end of the day holds up this as reality for you on a daily basis. When you were stuck on that nightmare merry-go-round of “I’ve gotta betray and murder my friends” simulations you were starting to think that It was getting good at creating Root, getting closer to the real deal, but the more time has passed in peace the more you realize just how wrong you were. It copied well enough the short term, very specific interactions, but there was something always a little off.

You now know it never would have gotten Root this well.

It never would have understood her (like it never really understood you enough to break you). Root has always been a wild card, odd, an anomaly from the typical human flock. It would have never understood her or her ability to relate to you (something just as anomalous).

No, you know in your conscious brain that this is real, that _she_ is real. Because so much of what’s between you is silent, almost automatic, and the Root of your ‘now’ knows things and understands only like _she_ could and _not_ how some simulation that is the product of a being that has only ever watched her actions would.

But that doesn’t stop your subconscious mind from sometimes getting confused.

Doesn't stop you from waking in the night broken out in a cold sweat (or just sweaty from the heat of a late New York summer) and think you were waking from a simulation, and when the realization of not being a hospital bed hits, slipping into the mind set of possibly having woke into another simulation, with the general reality of your surroundings seeming shaky.

You’d like to say that you’ve got to the point where you are able to wake Root, to seek confirmation in her that she is real, that _this_ is all real, but you’re still not there.

Instead you dress silently, slip out of the apartment, and into the dark streets of New York using every counter surveillance tactic you know, moving around in parts of the city far away from the subway, attempting to avoid every camera possible. But it’s not possible. There are way too many cameras in New York and The Machine always finds you eventually. Sometimes it is a few hours, other times nearly a day.

You don’t carry a phone, only a gun tucked into your waist band and a couple extra clips, but She always finds a way to get your attention; to talk to you even if your first instinct is to think it’s just a highly sophisticated trick from Samaritan. You _want_ to believe what's around you is real, but you can’t be sure. That is until you start picking up on what She is saying in the Morse code displayed by security camera lights flashing, the interference in radio broadcasts or the code hidden in what appeared to be poorly typed closed captions on T.V.s displayed in shop windows (the list goes on).

She always tells you about Root. About things the two of you did _before_ Samaritan and for which there was no way for either AI to have been privy to do to the lack of cameras.

The way you held a knife to her throat in the front seat of that Camaro.

Or any and every detail from that night in the CIA safe house.

The things She could only be aware of because Root told Her after the fact. It helps to ground you. Despite her naturally robotic syntax She manages to somehow add a bit of flair that makes it clear that it’s a recollection from Root and not just your own memories being twisted around by a simulation to be used against you.

The good news is that you always make it back to the apartment in one piece; tired, but otherwise okay. Sometimes Root won’t yet have waked and she’ll be none the wiser of your slip. Other times you make sure to come home with something to eat or something to make a meal. An attempt to inject some normalcy into the situation.

You never talk about it. (You don’t know why it was so much easier to voice your thoughts at times in all those simulations and you sometimes find yourself frustrated at your failing in the moments where you think you have something serious to say but _can’t_ ).  

You think you might just start to try again in earnest though. The slips come less often with the passing of time and maybe that distance will let you try to explain.

You don’t want to take her for granted.

Root never gave up on you, after everything, was never afraid of what you may have unwittingly become thanks to Samaritan; trust, unwavering in the face of everything (you’ll spend every day of the rest of your life trying to match that loyalty. You don’t know if it’s possible, but you’ll do everything you can to keep her safe).

She’s what helped you get through that nightmare. She’s all you had to hold onto. 

(You had never really thought on it back then, but maybe you were all she had, too).


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided a follow up was in order.

You still haven’t tried to sit her down and just tell her. You don’t know how to do that, to intentionally create a situation wherein the sole purpose is to say something to a specific someone and nothing else. It creates too much expectation. You’ve always just said what you wanted to say in the moment without thinking or otherwise stayed silent with the words to explain your thoughts gone in a moment as if they were never there.

That doesn’t mean you haven’t tried to just talk without preamble, speaking her name to get her attention, and successfully pulling her focus away from whatever was occupying her at the time. You never have anything else to say and she’ll just wait for a short while and when it’s clear you’re not going to say anything else she’ll give you a small smile and return to her previous task, while you grip your fist at your sides, blunt nails digging into your palms as you move away and hating that you keep failing at this.

That’s about as far as you’ve gotten. You started to say “I” once, but you trailed off and that “conversation” (if you can even call it that) ended just as thoroughly. She could go the rest of her life not knowing and you know she’d never resent you or think less of you for it.

But you want to tell her, though. Think it might even do you some good to know that information exist somewhere other than just in your head. “But is that selfish?” You question yourself. You know the pain it will cause her to hear about it or even just about your lapses (that even now you have moments of where your certainty fails you).

This whole thing between the two of you has always been incredibly lopsided. Even as you know now the weight of her significance to you, it’s not the same as being on equal footing because reciprocation doesn’t come naturally to you. In your own way you know you’ve tried but to you your shortcomings are just as apparent as ever. Where is the fairness in hurting her, again, just to ease your own weight?

Doesn’t mean you've stopped trying, though. You keep telling yourself that she _wants_ to know. That Root would understand being selfish in this. And really, you’re tired and just want to take this chance to maybe finally get back as close to whom you were, before everything went to shit, as possible. (But then why does the image of her face as you imagine tell her make you pause? Her eyes have always been too expressive).

Root is currently sitting on the other end of the couch from you typing up some code on her laptop, nerd glasses slipping down her nose seemingly without her realizing. Bear is curled up at your side, head on your thigh, as your right hand gently runs through his fur (your left is slowly clenching and unclenching where it is resting on the armrest).

“Root,”

She looks to you right away, “Hey, Sweetie.” A smile.

You hesitate.

“Root, I-…” Your right hand starts to give Bear light scratches by his neck. You take a deep breath, trying to find the words. She just looks at you, weight not heavy; patient. You can tell though that if you don’t say something more soon that her attention is going to slowly slide back to her laptop; frustratingly understanding. You look to the far wall.

“I…forget sometimes,” Your left fist clenches again, hard (you know if you had longer nails your palm would be bleeding). No. That is not what you are trying to say. You don’t _forget_ , that’s not it, you always remember _everything_ (memories of shooting John, yourself, etc. all live side by side with all the other memories just as ‘real’ seeming as the rest. Only difference being is that things you remember having happened in over 7,000 variations couldn’t have possibly happened in actuality)… It’s just that you become _uncertain_.

“No- I mean, I- …I just don’t know, sometimes.”

It’s confusing, you know. So unspecific that you don’t know what value could be assigned to having spoken at all. You hate talking. You don’t if you’re going to able to say more but you try not to discount that tonight you’ve said a dozen more words on the subject than you’ve managed in the last few months.

Your attention has shifted away from the far wall and back to Bear who snoozes quietly at your side. You can’t look at Root right now but you doubt she minds (she is weirdly accepting like that). You hear her move closer on the couch and within moments her hand is covering yours and you don’t know how she just… _knows_ what to do, but it just brings to mind thoughts of wishing she took care of herself as well as she does you.

It is then you decide that you are going to double down on the silent promise you made with yourself to keep her safe from harm in whatever way you can. You are unable to do the emotional stuff, but you can protect her life.

Because as you’ve always tried to explain to her, _you_ do the protecting.

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly fixed.


End file.
